The Chief Rabbinate, Interior Ministry and State Attorney’s Office are currently drawing up new procedures to determine the validity of Orthodox conversions for the purpose of aliya, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar said on Wednesday.

...There are currently at least six such cases of Orthodox converts wishing to make aliya awaiting the Interior Ministry’s decision on their cases.

Head of the Reform Movement in Israel Rabbi Gilad Kariv, who attended the discussion, proposed in a statement a practical line of action to his Orthodox brethren in the Diaspora, one he said has already proven successful:

“We suggest that Orthodox leaders in the Diaspora who oppose this haredi takeover [of conversion in the world] learn from the experience of the Reform Movement and exert direct influence on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.”

The right of people who convert in the Diaspora under Reform or Conservative auspices to make aliyah, or immigrate to Israel and claim citizenship as Jews, is detailed in Israeli law — a reaction to various attempts by ultra-traditional, or Haredi, politicians to bar them.

But it has always simply been taken for granted that all Orthodox converts have immigration rights under Israel’s Law of Return, which permits entry and instant citizenship to Jews everywhere.

But now, the Interior Ministry, which sets immigration policies, has begun discriminating from among the Orthodox.

Attorney Daniel Solomon of the Interior Ministry outraged [Kadima MK] Plesner when he was unable to produce a list of which overseas rabbis are recognized and which are not. But he insisted there is nothing new in the ministry's policy of consulting the rabbinate on this issue.

“Nativ will not be closed, and nothing about the military conversions will change, as they are perfectly good,” Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar said on Wednesday.

“I was also initially concerned about the non- Orthodox content being taught in Nativ,” Amar said, “but then saw that it was not actually an inherent part of the military conversion process. Even Jews participate in the said course.”

Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. He now divides his year between Canada and Israel.

Israel isn’t a religious state but a Jewish state. Therefore those who want to take upon themselves the obligations of citizenship should be accepted with open arms, whatever their religious background and current faith commitment.

And those who convert in the Diaspora, where religious affiliation is more important, should also be exposed to Jewish peoplehood; perhaps the curriculum should include a visit to Israel with a suitably designed programme to stress and celebrate Jews, not only Judaism.

This year, I will be attending Women of the Wall’s megillah reading at the Kotel for the first time. There was a time in my life when WOW’s agenda would have seemed too radical, even offensive, to me.

Now, when I read WOW’s mission statement: “to achieve the social and legal recognition of our right, as women, to wear prayer shawls, pray and read from the Torah collectively and out loud at the Western Wall,” I am shocked that this is not just a given. Of course women should be free to wear tallit and read Torah at the Kotel. And, of course, women should be welcome to read Megillat Esther at the Kotel.

Yet, on Rosh Hodesh Adar II, we were told by police that women are now not allowed to dance at the Kotel. Who knows what new prohibition might arise when we take out our megillah on Monday morning?

Palin began her trip by visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where she met with the Rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitch, who escorted her on part of her a tour.

Rabinovitch said Palin obliged his request to not walk along the Western Wall square so as to not disturb the reading of the scrolls at the time.

Rabinovitch mentioned that Palin shared her views on United States-Israel relations, saying she believes there are no disagreements between the two countries. She also voiced her "absolute" support of Israel.

"We're happy to accommodate Jews and non-Jews visiting the Western Wall. You could feel Palin's love towards the people of Israel and her great interest in the story of Purim," said Rabinovitch.

A senior Jewish Agency official resigned this week after working for the organization for a quarter century, following the institution's historic reorganization that eliminated the department he headed for eight years.

Jewish Agency spokesman Haviv Gur told Anglo File that Cohen - one of the agency's top 10 officials - disagreed with the vision of the organization's chairman Natan Sharansky...

In order to more effectively market themselves to the Diaspora, Israeli nonprofits need first to focus on targeting donors at home, improve their usage of technology and refine their administrative skill sets, field leaders say.

“The Israeli nonprofit has found it easier and more lucrative to look for funds abroad rather than in Israel. That was great during the formative years of Israel when we were a small, fledgeling country."

Pini Glinkewitz, director of the Municipal Absorption Authority, said that the majority of Jerusalem immigrants today are middleand upper-class families from North America or Western Europe who are national religious or haredi.

Seth Farber, a Modern Orthodox rabbi who immigrated from the United States and founded ITIM, the Jewish Life Information Center, knows all about persistence. He fights what he says often seems like an interminably uphill battle to help Israeli and Diaspora Jews navigate the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, which holds a monopoly on issues of religion like conversion and marriage.

Another American-run Israeli NGO involved in efforts to reduce tensions between religion and state is Tzohar, founded by a group of Modern Orthodox rabbis in 1996, soon after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist.

The organization’s current executive vice president is Nahum Rosenberg, an American immigrant.

Approximately 40 young people arrived for the London conference from various world locations including the US, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Holland, etc. They gathered to discuss issues connected with leadership and working with the young generation in regions that have active Jewish communities.

A conversation with Rabbi Aaron Lichtenstein, one of the senior/leading rabbis of the religious Zionist stream, who harshly criticizes rabbis trying to explain current events as being the will of God: “I don’t have God’s phone number, the way some others seem to have.”

Q: Lately, the separation of religion and state has again become a subject of public debate. Many feel that religion is destroying the state and vice versa. Is it time for such a separation?

This feminist platform has the potential to realign voting blocs. The Haredi parties, which never have women on their lists, are currently the greatest opponents of pro-women legislation.

What happens when their obstructionism runs up against increasingly assertive female politicians?

Perhaps in the next Israeli elections we will begin to see a shift — instead of the left against the right, the battle lines may increasingly be between religious parties and women. Now that would be very interesting.

I ask you to bravely write an answer to a question that has been disturbing me very much for quite some time. I am a thirty-six years old woman, rather pretty, educated and well taken care of, who has been attempting for over fifteen years to get married, but to no avail…

I want to have a child!!! I dream all the time about him and I want a child!!!

I beg of you: please articulate for me the entire issue from the very beginning till its end. with a specific conclusion. Am I allowed to bring a child to the world while I am not married? To be exact “How may I have a child?”

This year Israel marks 20 years since the Ethiopian migration, dubbed Operation Solomon. Among the dazed newcomers wrapped in traditional white cloths who climbed off the planes that day, a few individuals have done well.

Some have received advanced degrees or risen through the ranks of the Army. But the overall picture for the community, which has swelled to 120,000, is not good.

After years of wrangling, the Herzliya municipality decided yesterday to name a street after Yeshayahu Leibowitz - the first time an Israeli city has chosen to commemorate the left-wing Orthodox Jewish philosopher this way.

The writer has a PhD from Bar-Ilan University, is a rabbinical court advocate, coordinator of the Get-Refusal Prevention Project of the Council of Young Israel Rabbis and the Jewish Agency, and author of Minee Einayich Medima on prenuptial agreements for the prevention of get refusal.

It is incumbent upon the rabbis not to leave the problem frozen in time. Today’s rabbinic judges must shoulder the responsibility to actually neutralize the power of the recalcitrant husband.

There are processes within Jewish law which provide for rabbis to abrogate the power of the husband to turn his wife into an aguna.

The International Coalition for Agunah Rights organization will be marking International Agunah Day on Thursday, calling attention to the plight of women whose husbands are unable or unwilling to grant them a Jewish divorce (get).

Batya Kahana-Dror, head of Mavoi Satum:

The solution can either be the rabbinate forcing recalcitrant husbands to give divorces, as was the custom since the time of the Mishna.

Another solution being promoted by ICAR is prenuptial agreements, which impose financial penalties on the recalcitrant party, thus providing a financial incentive not to refuse a divorce.

Like Esther, the agunot of the present era do not want to be in the marriage in which they find themselves. Like Esther, many women who are refused a get live in fear of their spouses and live a double life. Like Esther, the aguna, a victim of get-refusal finds herself lacking control of her own freedom.

In this manner all who concern themselves with having a just, stable Jewish society rise to the challenge. "Agunah Day" symbolizes awareness of the general public. It serves as a rallying cry among the people calling for the eradication of this destructive phenomenon in a healthy, balanced society.

In proclaiming "Agunah Day" by the Israeli Knesset the people come together to declare that the abandonment of a wife or the refusal of a get is not tolerated in the State of Israel.

A new survey shows that most Israeli couples are unaware of the existence of a special pre-nuptial agreement, which prevents a woman from eventually becoming an aguna - a woman whose husband denies her a get (religious divorce) and can, therefore not remarry.

This pre-nuptial agreement, which has existed for 37 years and must be signed before a marriage registrar, nullifies the halakhic requirement that a man must agree to his wife's divorce request for it to be fulfilled.

Have the rabbis not felt the necessity of developing deep halachic reasoning and mechanisms, thus taking action to prevent their own daughters from becomingagunot? Apparently denial is a stronger force than shame.

Nevertheless, there is one type of shame to which Orthodox rabbis and their followers are sensitive: the shame of chillul Hashem - desecration of God's name.

Add the ongoing media coverage - with people of all religions (and unaffiliated Jews whom Orthodoxy wishes to attract) witnessing the plight of theagunah - to the shame of the Orthodox Jewish community's inability to resolve that human tragedy.

How tragic this compounding of shame before the eyes of the people of the world! But is it shameful enough to cause the rabbis to take back power from the truly shameful get-refusers?

While holding separate Megillah readings just for women is a growing trend in the religious Zionist sector, these ceremonies are not replacing the central Megillah reading held by men on the eve of the Purim holiday.

The women's events are for the most part held later, after the Purim banquet. There are dozens of female prayer quorums held not only in Jerusalem, the bastion of the liberal religious, but also throughout the country.

Shulamit Phillips:

"Maybe two publics are actually developing here," she muses aloud. "The Hardalis who are pushing for total separation, for example at weddings, and the liberal public, which is moving closer and closer to the concept of an egalitarian synagogue."

The modern Orthodox rabbinical group Tzohar will also be hosting megila readings and Purim celebrations in more than 100 locations throughout the country, including shopping centers, absorption and community centers, high school gyms, Jerusalem’s Begin Center and the Tel Aviv Ichilov Medical Center’s lobby.

A minyan for Russian speakers will be held in Petah Tikva, and young members of the Ethiopian community in Gedera will also hold a Tzohar reading.

The Bina Center for Jewish Identity and Hebrew Culture will be furthering the outreach of Purim in offering a megilareading on the sixth floor of Tel Aviv’s central bus station, where foreign workers and others tend to mill.

Purim, the ultimate soap opera. What would happen if you put the story on Web steroids and add a slight modern day twists?

Well, you'd get the definitive viral video for Sunday school 8th grade teachers and people that had just one too many drinks (this is even better to watch with alcohol of your choice)

See if you can follow, here are a few clues: A love story that incorporates green energy, feminism, money fraud, Wikileaks, corporate capitalism, fashion designers, activism, computer hacking, and dress-up parties and a cat.

Fall head over heels for our contemporary Shushan characters, as you get sucked into the innocence, drama, idiosyncrasies, and political satire that is Virtual Purim 5771 (2011) !!!

The "Together for Purim" program was inspired by Tzohar's "Praying Together" Yom Kippur program which has been taking place for over 10 years and grows by thousands of participants each year.

"Israelis welcome a refreshing opportunity to embrace their Jewish Identity in a way that is not coercive or forceful" Rosenberg says. "Programs such as this promote Jewish unity, a national value that is deeply existential in our eyes".

Several years ago, I was asked by the Foreign Ministry to deliver a series of lectures in the United States. The subject I chose to explore through the lens of my camera was the haredi communities. This photographic project has been going on for years.

Nowadays the camera is just an "excuse" for me to look beyond stereotypes and prejudices and meet the people of the different haredi neighborhoods, particularly Jerusalem's Mea Shearim.

Osem, one of the country's largest food manufacturers, today has strictly kosher certification for more than 90 percent of its products. This is in addition to kashrut certification from the state-funded Chief Rabbinate, which is required for all Israeli food products marketed as kosher.

[Shahar Ilan, vice president for research and information for Hiddush] attributes the rise of mehadrin to a number of factors.

"One is that ultra-Orthodox economic clout is growing and making this possible, and the other is that there is no large and organized public for which it is important not to eat mehadrin.

And of course ultra-Orthodox society has a big problem providing jobs for people with a Torah education. Therefore, in fact, ultra-Orthodox society has an interest in the mehadrin industry just continuing to grow. The secular companies, for their part, think this will increase their profits, or are afraid to lose a market to competitors."

At the moment kashrut supervisors continue to receive their salaries from the businesses or from temporary-labor companies, which deduct mediation fees.

"The problem is in fact the cost of supervision: Who will bear it?

On the one hand the state says there is no religious coercion, no one is forced to be kosher. On the other hand it is aware that 70 percent of the population demands kosher food. Until they regularize the situation there will be no solution to all the problems."

Perhaps agreeing to get married shows that most Israelis are more conservative than they let on, and that despite their protest against "religious coercion," they identify with the patriarchal values at the basis of the sale-and-purchase deal called marriage.

"I am pleased that everyone emphasized that the employment situation and poverty need not exist in Hared cities, and that there is no reason for this to continue. It contributes nothing to the things that are important to use as Jews and Israeli citizens."

The incoming head of the National Security Council, Maj.- Gen. (res.) Ya’acov Amidror:

“The danger that refusing orders poses is to Israel’s national security, and there is no room here for rabbinic considerations – rabbis don’t know about national security, and their pretentiousness to understand it is like their pretentiousness to understand medicine.

“The rabbis must understand that a sovereign country can make decisions,” he stated. “If we heed those rabbis, we willdamage Israel’s national security...and bring down the State of Israel.”

Alber Halul, who was stabbed Saturday night by a group of masked men he claims are haredim, recounted the attack Sunday. "They threatened to shoot us if we resisted and stabbed me 10 times – in my head, my leg, and my neck," he told Ynet.

Dr. Yoram Blachar, former chairman of the Israel Medical Association, who had been making a last-ditch effort to save Jerusalem’s 143-year-old Bikur Cholim Hospital, on Tuesday night informed the hospital management and doctors’ union that he was resigning as chairman of the voluntary organization running the institution.

A new study, which will be published in the forthcoming issue of Israel Studies in Language and Society under the title "Talking Peace - Making War," shows that the Torah leaflets distributed by the thousands in synagogues encourage racism, xenophobia and incitement to violence.

Rabbi Pinto described his network of yeshivas and social service organizations as a decentralized web of independent operations to which he provides inspiration and guidance.

These operations include three yeshivas in Ashdod, two in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, one in Kiryat Malachi and a newly built yeshiva in Rishon LeZion, which, all told, are training 500 students to be rabbis.

There are also two large schools for girls in Ashdod and a professional training school for women in Ashkelon. A soup kitchen in Ashdod serves 3,500 hot meals a day and gives out 11,000 food baskets on holidays.

One of the Israeli yeshivas also provides living stipends to 180 widows. Followers of the rabbi also provide wine, challah and candles in hospitals around Israel on Fridays.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate sold most of its leasing rights to large swaths of Jerusalem to a group of Jewish investors last week. The NIS 80 million agreement puts an end to the long draw-out land affair - at least for the next 140 years.